January 29, 1861 - Lawrence, Kansas, celebrates statehood with a bang
- “Old Sacramento” was one of ten cannons captured from
Mexican forces by United States forces led by Colonel Alexander
Doniphan on February 28, 1847, in the Battle of Sacramento during the
Mexican-American War. After the War, “Old Sacramento” and
the other nine cannons were taken to the Federal arsenal in Liberty,
Missouri. When President Franklin Pierce signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act
on May 30, 1854, he unknowingly began seven years of violence and
bloodshed as men fought over whether the new territory of Kansas would
come into the Union as a state that allowed slavery. The town of
Lawrence became the headquarters of the Free-State movement in the
territory, and as such was the target of significant animosity from
proslavery men. Despite this pressure, it continued to be the locus of
antislavery activity throughout the time that has come to be known as
“Bleeding Kansas.” Sometime in late 1855 or early 1856,
proslavery forces took “Old Sacramento” from the Liberty
Arsenal and brought it into Kansas to use against the Free-State forces
in the Territory. They reportedly brought it to Lawrence on May 21,
1856, and possibly fired it during the sacking of the town that day,
using it to help destroy the Free State Hotel. After Lawrence had been
sacked and burned, they moved the cannon to the town of Franklin a few
miles southeast of Lawrence, and set it up in a fortified log structure
there known as Fort Franklin. On June 4, 1856, Free-State men attacked
the fort. The defenders fought back, firing “Old
Sacramento” at least once during the fight. Eventually the
proslavery men were forced to flee, leaving the cannon behind. The
Free-State men took possession of the cannon and brought it back to
Lawrence. A little over two months after the Battle of Franklin, on
August 16, 1856, the cannon was used in the successful Free-State
attack on Fort Titus, a proslavery stronghold about two miles south of
Lecompton, Kansas. The cannon was supposedly loaded with shot made from
lead printing type, recovered from the office of the Herald of Freedom
newspaper that proslavery raiders had destroyed during the attack on
Lawrence on May 21st. Two of the defenders were killed that day and six
severely injured. Eight Free-State men were wounded, one of them
mortally. After the Battle of Fort Titus, the cannon was brought back
to Lawrence. On September 14, 1856, “Old Sacramento” was
brought up to Hickory Point, a small settlement in Jefferson County,
Kansas Territory, and was fired a number of times as Free-State forces
tried to dislodge a large company of proslavery men who had taken
refuge in several fortified log buildings. After several unsuccessful
assaults, the fighting ended with a negotiated compromise. One
proslavery man was killed, and four proslavery and five Free-State men
were wounded in the fighting. After the Battle of Hickory Point, the
cannon was taken back to Douglas County. It was never used again in
battle. When the violence in the Territory subsided, a decision was
made to hide the cannon to keep it safe in case the violence returned
and it were needed again. “Old Sacramento” was taken to
Thomas Bickerton’s farm near Clinton, Kansas Territory, and
buried on his property there. On January 21, 1861, a bill for the
admission of Kansas to the Union under the Free-State Wyandotte
Constitution was passed by the United States Senate. One week later, on
January 28th, the bill passed the House of Representatives. President
James Buchanan signed the bill into law the next day, January 29, 1861,
a date to be known forever after as “Kansas Day”. At the
time of the House vote, five Southern states had already seceded from
the Union, so the vote in favor of Kansas being admitted to the Union
as a state that did not allow slavery was in part made possible by the
seceded states having given up their ability to vote against it. Word
of the passing of the bill admitting Kansas to the Union was quickly
telegraphed to Leavenworth, Kansas, and the Leavenworth Conservative
published an extra edition. Copies of the paper announcing statehood
were rushed to Lawrence. The news that Douglas County, Kansas
Territory, was now Douglas County, Kansas, and that the long struggle
to legally exclude slavery from the area had been successfully
concluded, reached town before dark, and was met by music and wild
celebration in Lawrence. A large company of men was dispatched to the
farm of Thomas Bickerton to dig up “Old Sacramento.” They
did so, and brought it back to Lawrence, arriving after dark. The
jubilant citizens began firing the cannon to celebrate the admission of
Kansas to the Union as a Free State. The firing continued through the
late evening of the 29th and on through the early morning hours of the
30th. The cannon stayed in Lawrence, and after the end of the Civil
War, it was brought out for parades and special occasions. In July
1896, “Old Sacramento” was employed to help recover the
bodies of several people who had drowned in the Kaw River in Lawrence.
There was a widely held belief that the concussion from a fired cannon
would cause sunken bodies to rise to the surface. The gun was taken to
the riverbank and loaded and fired repeatedly, each time with a heavier
charge, until the recoil wrecked the carriage. Finally, a charge of
three pounds of gunpowder was loaded into the cannon, and gunny sacks,
wet grass, wet clay, and other material was pounded in with a
sledgehammer on top of the powder. When the cannon was fired, it
exploded, blowing out a large section of the barrel at the firing
chamber. The largest piece of the blown out section went through the
Consolidated Barb Wire Mill building, and smaller pieces were thrown
clear across the river. While there was no report of any spectators or
foolhardy cannoneers being injured by the explosion, “Old
Sacramento” was destroyed. The shattered barrel of the historic
cannon was put on display in the Museum at the University of Kansas.
Sometime later, it was transferred to the custody of the Douglas County
Historical Society, and the remains of “Old Sacramento” are
currently on display in the Watkins Community Museum of History in Lawrence. (From: A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans, written and compiled by William E. Connelley, Chapter 39, 1918; Order of Secession During the American Civil War, Order of Seceding States, by Martin Kelly, About.com Guide; When Kansas Became a State, Kansas Historical Quarterly, vol. 27, no. 1 (Spring 1961), pp. 1-21; The Civil War Muse, Watkins Community Museum; The Kansas Centennial: An Intellectual Journey,
part IV in Variations on a Theme: History as Knowledge of the Past, by
George L. Anderson, Coronado Press, Lawrence, Kansas, 1970; Kansas day:
containing a brief history of Kansas, and a collection by Kansas
authors, by F. H. Barrington, Geo. W. Crane & company, 1892, p. 62;
Kansas: a cyclopedia of state history, embracing events, institutions,
industries, counties, cities, towns, prominent persons, etc., Standard
Publishing Co, Chicago, 1912, v. 1, pp. 841-842 and, v. 2, pp. 617-618; Legends of America, Battle of Franklin of Bleeding Kansas; Historic Lecompton, The Battle of Fort Titus; and, National Register of Historic Places, Multiple Property Documentation Form, Historic Resources of Lawrence, Douglas County, Kansas. Published 1/11.) Back to top of page
February 26, 2001 - The Douglas County Law Library is established by a vote of local attorneys
- In the closing years of the 20th century, members of the local legal
community perceived a growing need for a law library to serve the
attorneys and general public in Douglas County, Kansas. In the fall of
2000, the Honorable Michael J. Malone, then Chief Judge of the Seventh
Judicial District, proposed to the Bench/Bar Committee of the Douglas
County Bar Association that it consider establishing a county law
library. The Committee decided to ask local attorneys if there was
enough interest to move forward with the proposal. The Committee
appointed a six-member subcommittee to coordinate and conduct an
election on establishing a law library, pursuant to the requirements
set forth in K.S.A. 20-3126(b). On February 26, 2001, the committee
held an election among local attorneys, asking whether a county law
library should be established. The attorneys voted 109 in favor and 12
against, thereby approving the establishment of a library. According to
statute, the five sitting district court judges, the Honorable Michael
J. Malone, the Honorable Robert Fairchild, the Honorable Paula B.
Martin, the Honorable Jack A. Murphy, and the Honorable Jean F.
Shepherd, became members of a board of trustees for the newly approved
law library. Since the five members constituted a quorum of the new
Douglas County Law Library Board of Trustees, they immediately held a
meeting by e-mail on February 27-28, 2001. The board passed a motion
that set the attorney representation on the Board at four members, two
more than the statutory requirement that no fewer than two attorney
members be elected to two-year terms on a county law library board. In
addition, the board set the law library docket fees that are authorized
in K.S.A. 20-3129, with collection to begin in March of 2001. The board
held an election to fill the four attorney positions on the board of
trustees in May of 2001. Douglas County attorneys elected David J.
Brown, Kay Huff, Margie Wakefield, and Charles Whitman, all of whom had
been members of the Bench/Bar election subcommittee, to serve on the
board. The board held its first regular meeting on May 31, 2001. At
that meeting, it set the annual Law Library Registration Fee for local
attorneys at the statutory minimum of $10.00 and authorized Doug
Hamilton, Clerk of the Douglas County District Court, to begin
collecting the fee pursuant to K.S.A 20-3126(c). Over the next year and
a half, the board researched and investigated the necessities of
opening and operating a law library, including the finding of a
suitable location for the library and the hiring of a law librarian.
The Judicial and Law Enforcement Center was undergoing renovation
during that time, which allowed some flexibility in identifying a space
for the library to occupy. The board chose an area on the south side of
the Judicial and Law Enforcement Center and next to the south entrance
of the building as the location for the future library. The space had
previously been part of the Citizen Review Board offices. Construction
began to adapt the space for library use. During the summer of 2002,
the board conducted a search for a law librarian with Kerry Altenbernd
eventually being hired to fill the position. He began work on October
1, 2002. The board and the law librarian worked for the next seven
months to finish renovation of the space, outfit the library, and
otherwise make it ready for opening. The official opening of the
Douglas County Law Library was marked by a ribbon-cutting ceremony on
May 1, 2003. (From: The Law Library History page on this website. Published 2/11.) Back to top of page
March 17, 1823 - Thaddeus Prentice, Jr., future sheriff of Douglas County, Kansas, is born in Jewett City, Connecticut
- Early on December 23, 1857, Thaddeus Prentice, Jr., and his younger
brother, William, rode north the twelve miles from their home to
Lawrence, Kansas, to join a group of other Free-State men who had been
recruited by the Free State Safety Committee. The Committee had been
organized to protect Free-State settlers from marauding proslavery
forces in Kansas, and had recruited a group of sixty men to retrieve
250 muskets and 75 sabers that had been taken in October 1856 from an
emigrant wagon train by proslavery forces under orders of the then
Territorial Governor John W. Geary. A Territorial election was
scheduled for January 4, 1858, and the Free-State men believed they
needed the weapons to insure that the election was a fair one. In the
first Territorial election in March of 1855, thousands of proslavery
Missourians had come over the border into Kansas, had taken control of
polling places, voted, kept Free-State men from voting, and then went
back home to Missouri after a "Bogus" proslavery legislature had been
elected. The Free-State men did not want a repeat of this in the
January 1858 election. The group that included the two Prentice
brothers set off for Lecompton, the Territorial Capitol, to confront
newly appointed Territorial Governor James W. Denver. When the group
arrived on the edge of Lecompton, three men went in to see the
Governor, leaving orders that if they did not returned within two
hours, the remainder of the party was to come into town. They did not
want to use force against Governor Denver unless absolutely necessary.
When they did not return before the two-hour time limit expired,
Thaddeus Prentice led the remaining men into town. When 57 Free-State
men entered his office demanding the weapons, Denver reluctantly agreed
to turn them over, which he did. The men brought them back to Lawrence,
arriving there late in the evening, and distributed them to the
militia. Thaddeus Prentice, Jr., was the fourth son born to Thaddeus
Prentice, Sr., and Almira Gordon Prentice. He spent his first eight
years in the town of his birth, Jewett City, Connecticut, before moving
with his family to Willimantic, Connecticut, where he grew to manhood.
On March 25, 1846, he married Anna Louisa Ayer. They began a family,
and had two sons before they moved to Erie County, New York, in 1849.
Prentice supposedly worked for a time as a sheriff in Erie County (1).
During their time in Erie County, Thaddeus and Anna had three more
children, two girls and a boy. In 1856, Prentice packed up his wife and
five children and moved to Kansas, arriving in Lawrence on May 21, 1856
(2). The family was likely on their way to stay with Anna's sister,
Joanna Gleason, who had come to Kansas in 1854, and was living in
Willow Springs Township southwest of Lawrence. The day that the
Prentices arrived in Lawrence was also the day that the town was sacked
and partially burned by a group of between 400 and 600 proslavery men
led by the proslavery Sheriff of Douglas County, Sam Jones. Lawrence
was the headquarters of the Free-State movement that was seeking
admission of the Territory to the Union as a state that did not allow
slavery, and so was the object of significant animosity from those in
the Territory who supported slavery. On May 21, that animosity
significantly escalated the level of violence that had already been
plaguing "Bleeding Kansas." It is not known how much of the goings on
that day were witnessed by Thaddeus and his family, but, despite being
unlucky enough to arrive in Lawrence on that particular day, and having
received such an unfriendly welcome, Prentice settled his family near
Brooklyn, a small settlement along the Santa Fe Trail in Douglas County
south of Lawrence. He acquired some land and began farming. That
winter, Thaddeus' younger brother, William, arrived in Kansas, and
lived for some time with his older brother's family. Thaddeus Prentice
was described as, "…an original character, who in appearance
might be considered a companion piece to Jim Lane." Jim Lane was one of
the leaders of the Free-state movement in Kansas, and was known at
times to have a somewhat wild appearance, with his hair uncombed and
standing straight up. Thaddeus was said to have had, "…a rare
faculty of getting news. If any mischief was brewing in his direction,
he would somehow get wind of it by a sort of instinct, by a sort of
sixth sense. Whenever he felt that there was something in the air of
this kind, he would mount his horse and ride into Lawrence. Whenever
the people saw the tall, gaunt figure of 'Thad. Prentice' coming down
the street, they knew that it was 'tidings, my Lord, tidings.'" He had,
"…many quaint expressions which came to seem like a part of him.
If everything was favorable he would reply to the questions asked him,
'Oh, everything is lovely and the goose hangs high.'(3)" After the men
from the Free State Safety Committee visited Territorial Governor
Denver, the trouble in the Territory slowly clamed down as the
Free-State cause began to win out over the proslavery faction, and
Thaddeus devoted his time to farming and raising his children. He
maintained a presence in Brooklyn, but for at least some of the time,
his family lived in Lawrence, as shown by the United States Census
record for Lawrence, dated June 18, 1860, in which his family is
recorded as living there. On January 29, 1861, Kansas entered the Union
as a Free State, and in April of that year, the civil war that had
begun in Kansas broke out across the nation. In the summer of 1863,
Thaddeus and most of his family were living on their farm at Brooklyn.
His oldest son, Charles, was living and working in Lawrence. At dawn on
August 21, 1863, William Clarke Quantrill, perhaps the most notorious
Confederate guerilla commander in the American Civil War, and 400 of
his men attacked Lawrence. They proceeded to pillage and burn the town,
and one of the businesses they targeted was the Winchell & Burt
wholesale house, where Charles Prentice was employed as a clerk.
Charles occasionally spent the night in the business, and was sleeping
there when the attack began. He crawled under the building, and when
the raiders set it on fire, he crawled out and surrendered. Mr. Burt,
one of the owners of the business, was killed by the raiders, but
Charles was spared. After four hours of destruction and bloodshed in
which over 150 men and boys were killed, Quantrill and his men headed
south out of town, burning houses as they went. When they reached
Brooklyn, they stopped and began setting fire to the houses and other
buildings in the small town. They had just begun to set fire to
Thaddeus Prentice's house when a group of citizens under the command of
Jim Lane caught up to them. The pursuers drove off the raiders, and
thought they were able to save the Prentice house, few buildings around
Brooklyn were saved. Sometime later, Thaddeus moved his family to a
house on the east side of Connecticut Street in Lawrence. The move may
have been precipitated by Thaddeus assuming the duties of City Marshal
for Lawrence. In addition to being City Marshal, Thaddeus also served
as Douglas County Sheriff, and from January 1864 to January 1866, as
County Coroner. On October 16, 1864, he enlisted as a private in
Company M of the Third Regiment of the Kansas State Militia, but was
mustered out of service only nine days later on October 27. Thaddeus
Prentice, Jr., died at 2:00 AM on Friday, June 12, 1868, of a bronchial
affection and disease of the lungs. He was buried that same day in Oak
Hill Cemetery, near the final resting place of many victims of
Quantrill's Raid. His law enforcement legacy was continued by his son
Charles, who served as City Marshal of Lawrence from 1883 to 1886, and
again from 1900 to 1905.
(1) In the article in The Howland Quarterly,
it is noted that Prentice, "was a sheriff of Erie County…." The
Erie County, New York, Sheriff Department's website lists those who
have served as sheriff in the county, the list going back to 1823, and
Prentice is not on the list. Assuming that when the article says he was
"a" sheriff, it did not mean he was "the" sheriff, and assuming that
the sheriff office's list is complete, then he probably served there
either as a deputy or as undersheriff, and not as sheriff.
(2) Different sources give two different dates as to when Prentice and his family arrived in Lawrence. The entry for Prentice on the Find a Grave website reports their arrival in Douglas County as being in March 1856, and the Descendants of Robert Prentice page on the PrenticeNet website notes that Thaddeus, "moved to Lawrence, KS in Mar 1856." The article in The Howland Quarterly,
notes he and his family arrived in Lawrence on May 21, 1856. Since the
latter has more detail about Prentice than do the other two, it is
assumed here to be the most accurate of the three.
(3) This is an interesting expression for a Free-State man to use.
During the "Bleeding Kansas" era, a person being asked if they were,
"sound on the goose" was a potentially deadly occurrence. Being "sound
on the goose" meant that someone supported the proslavery cause, the
"goose" being a euphemism for slavery. Men on both sides of the slavery
issue were known to ask the question, so if a group of unknown men rode
up to someone and asked the question, the person would be unsure how to
answer. If the person did not give the men the answer that they wanted,
that person could be in big, frequently fatal, trouble. The expression
"Everything is lovely and the goose hangs high" was not uncommon during
the latter half of the 19th Century. There is a reference to soldiers
of the 137th New York Infantry Regiment singing the words as they
marched past the body of a Confederate spy hanging from a tree. The man
had been hanged after having been caught with incriminating documents
in General Buford's camp immediately after the Battle of Gettysburg.
There are reports that the expression was sometimes used by members of
Jesse James' gang and other Confederate sympathizers after the Civil
War. Why Thaddeus Prentice used that expression is open to speculation,
but considering his political opinions, he might have used it as a
commentary on the other "goose" expression, his meaning being that
slavery in Kansas was dangling from a rope, as would be the unfortunate
Confederate spy caught by General Buford some years later.
(From: The Howland Quarterly, v. 60, no. 4 (December 1995), pp. 7-9; Sheriffs of Erie County, Erie County, New York, Sheriff's Office website; Thaddeus Prentice, Jr., Find a Grave website; Thaddeus Prentice Jr.,
Descendants of Robert Prentice, PrenticeNet.com website; A History of
Lawrence from the earliest settlement to the close of the rebellion, by
Richard Cordley, E. F. Caldwell, Lawrence, Kansas, 1895, Chapter 6;
Final Report on the Battlefield at Gettysburg, New York Monuments
Commission for the Battlefields of Gettysburg and Chattanooga, vol. 3,
J.B. Lyons Co., Albany, 1900, p. 943; Posting,
U.S. Outlaws Forum, Genforum.genealogy.com website; United States
Census, Douglas County, Kansas, 1860; Quantrill and the Border Wars, by
William Elsey Connelley, The Torch Press, Cedar Rapids, IA, 1910, p. 398; A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans, written and compiled by William E. Connelley, Chicago : Lewis, 1918, Chapter 45, p. 1; William G. Cutler's History of the State of Kansas, Douglas County, Part 3, County Organization and Official Roster; and, Marshals to Chiefs, unpublished manuscript, compiled by Christopher L. Mulvenon. Published 3/11.) Back to top of page
April 21, 1863 - Cattle thieves arrested in Douglas County, Kansas
- On April 17, 1863, thirty-four head of cattle were stolen in Butler
County, Kansas. Several Indians were put on the trail of the herd and
tracked it "across streams, over rocky divides, and across the
prairies." Though they lost the trail several times, "They, with native
shrewdness, managed to make out the general course of the drove." The
authorities must have suspected who the thief was, as A.R. Bancroft,
Deputy Sheriff of Lyon County, Kansas (1), "was intrusted with the
papers for the arrest of the thief." The Indian trackers must also have
given them a good idea of where the thief was, because on the morning
of April 21, 1863, a man named Arnold, presumably 26 year-old Hiram S.
Arnold, was arrested in Lawrence, Kansas, and put in jail. Arnold
directed authorities to a place about four miles south of Lawrence on
the Wakarusa River where the stolen cattle were being tended by another
man. Arnold told the authorities that the other man had only been hired
to help drive the cattle the 150 miles from Butler County to where they
had ended up in Douglas County, and should not be implicated in the
theft. Both men were taken as prisoners to Lyon County. As reported in
the August 23, 1863, edition of the Kansas State Journal, the
Court was sitting, so the two would probably be tried that week.
According to the newspaper, "Arnold is an old resident of Lyon County,
and circumstances lead to the belief that he is an old offender." The
reason why men accused of stealing cattle from Butler County would be
tried in Lyon County was not explained. It is probable that in 1863,
Lyon County was the seat of the judicial district that included Butler
County, but if this is the case, it is not apparent.
(1) Lyon County had previously been named
Breckinridge County, in honor of John C. Breckinridge (1821-1875).
Breckinridge had been a congressman from Kentucky and an ally of United
States Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois, and had worked hard to get
Douglas' Kansas-Nebraska Act, the legislation that established the
Territory of Kansas, passed in congress. The proslavery Kansas
Territorial Legislature recognized his actions by naming the county for
Breckinridge when it was organized in 1855. From 1857 to 1861,
Breckinridge served as vice-president of the United States under James
Buchanan, and was nominated by the Southern Democrats as their
candidate for President in the 1860 election. Both he and the nominee
of the Northern Democrats, his friend Stephen Douglas, were defeated in
that election by Abraham Lincoln, the husband of Mary Todd Lincoln, one
of Breckinridge's cousins. Later in November 1860, Breckinridge was
appointed to the United States Senate. Lincoln's election precipitated
southern states to begin seceding from the Union the month after his
election to the Presidency. Breckinridge served in the Senate from
March to December 1861, during which time the Civil War broke out
across the nation. He first tried to keep Kentucky neutral in the war,
but when the state declared its loyalty to the Union, he felt forced to
choose sides. Breckinridge was expelled from the Senate on December 4,
1861, for supporting the rebellion. Because of his pro-Confederate
sympathies, on February 5, 1862, the Kansas Legislature renamed
Breckinridge County as Lyon County, in honor of General Nathaniel Lyon
(1818-1861), who became the first Union general to die in battle in the
Civil War when he was killed in action at Wilson's Creek, Missouri, on
August 10, 1861. Breckinridge later served as a major general in the
Confederate Army and as the Confederacy's fifth and last Secretary of
War from February to May 1865.
(From: Kansas State Journal, Lawrence, April 23, 1863, p. 3; United States Census, 1860, Kansas, Breckinridge (Lyon) County; Breckinridge County, Kansas, Kansas Counties, Kansas Historical Society website; Lyon County, Kansas, Kansas Counties, Kansas Historical Society website; Vice Presidents of the United States, John C. Breckinridge (1857-1861), United States Senate website; and, John C. Breckinridge, Wikipedia article. Published 4/11.) Back to top of page
May 8, 1863 - Dick Yeager raids the village of Black Jack in Douglas County, Kansas
- Richard F. "Dick" Yeager, sometimes spelled Yager, was probably born
on March 28, 1839, in Washington, Kentucky. He came from a prominent
and wealthy family who apparently moved to Missouri shortly after his
birth. He was the son of James B. Yeager, who became presiding judge of
the Jackson County, Missouri, Court, in 1840, and who was elected in
1858 for one term in the Missouri State Legislature. Prior to the
beginning of the Civil War, the elder Yeager also ran a freight
business that carried goods along the Santa Fe Trail. Dick Yeager
worked for his father in the freight business, and was in charge of one
of his father’s wagon trains. As such, young Yeager would have
been familiar with the towns and villages on the Trail. One of the
villages he would have known of was Black Jack, a small community that
serviced wagons and supplied travelers moving along the Trail. The
community was established in southeast Douglas County, Kansas
Territory, in 1857, approximately a mile east of the site of the Battle
of Black Jack, in which the abolitionist John Brown led a Free-State
militia in a successful attack on a pro-slavery militia early on the
morning of June 2, 1856. The area was known as Black Jack because of
the abundance of Black Jack Oaks there. Throughout the Kansas
Territorial period and on through the Civil War, the border between
Kansas and Missouri was the site of significant violence, first over
the issue of whether Kansas would enter the Union as a slave state or a
free state, and then as a result of the increasingly bitter feelings
generated during the War. Just a few months before the outbreak of the
War, Dick Yeager married Martha J. Muir on November 22, 1860. As a
result of the bitter feelings along the border, that War came home to
Dick Yeager soon after its outbreak in April 1861. Upon returning from
one of his wagon train journeys, he found that his father's farm had
been raided and burned by Jennison's Jayhawkers, a Union cavalry
regiment led by Charles R. Jennison, known for its harsh treatment of
Confederate sympathizers. As a result of the raid on his father's farm,
Dick Yeager joined the notorious Confederate guerrilla leader William
Clark Quantrill, eventually serving as a captain in his band of
raiders. Quantrill and his men terrorized the Kansas - Missouri border
for most of the rest of the War. On May 4, 1863, Dick Yeager led a
group of the guerrillas on what proved to be an unsuccessful raid on
Council Grove, Kansas. On their way back to Missouri, the men raided
settlements along the Santa Fe Trail, stopping at Black Jack on May 8.
They robbed the store owned by N. H. Brockway and S. A. Stonebraker,
and stole all the horses that were owned by the overland stage route.
Although they were robbed, the citizens of Black Jack were otherwise
unmolested by Yeager and his men. The same cannot be said about
Yeager's visit to Lawrence, Kansas, three and a half months later on
August 21, 1863. At dawn on that day, Quantrill led 400 of his men,
including Dick Yeager, into the former headquarters of the Free-State
movement, and proceeded to burn and pillage the town. During the
three-hour raid, over 150 men and boys were killed by the guerrillas,
and most of the buildings in the town were destroyed. After the attack
on Lawrence, Dick Yeager continued to lead guerrilla raids in Kansas
and Missouri. Then, on July 19, 1864, he was seriously wounded in a
battle at Arrow Rock, Missouri. He was apparently recovering from his
wounds when he was attacked and killed in August, conflicting accounts
giving the date of his death as either the 1st or the 12th. One account
of his death was written by Margaret Jane Hays, a relative of Yeager's,
in a letter to her mother. In part it reads (original punctuation and
spelling are retained), "Mother you heard that Dick was killed some
time ago. He was not killed then but poor fellow is gone now. Oh Mother
it is hard to think of, he was wounded at Arrow Rock in the head. He
fell from his horse, did not come to hisSelf for some time, was run
over by horses, brake one leg but was getting well of his wounds when
he was come upon by the D..... They murdered him in a most cruel
manner. It nearly kills his poor old father, his Mother I fear for her
for she is sick and this news will go hard with her altho she has been
expecting it. Dicks wife and Chile is in Texas." (From: Missouri History, Missouri State Legislators, 1820-2000, Missouri History website; Mrs. J. O. Williams Collection description, Kansas City Public Library, Missouri Valley Special Collections website; Quantrill of Missouri: the making of a guerrilla warrior: the man, the myth, the soldier, by Paul R. Petersen, Cumberland House Publishing, 2003, p. 151; Richard Francis Yeager, posting on Rootsweb.Ancestry.com; , Wikipedia article; Border Troubles in Morris County, Legends of Kansas website; William G. Cutler's History of the State of Kansas, Douglas County, Part 34; Yeager, Richard (Dick), Charcoal Portrait, Kansas City Public Library, Missouri Valley Collection website; Letter 58, Fulton Caliway Co. Mo., September the 7/64, Mag J. (Margaret Jane Hays) to Dear Mother, The Watts Hays Letters website; and, Footnotes for Letters 54 - 60: 1861 -1865 - The Civil War Years, The Watts Hays Letters website. Published 5/11.) Back to top of page
June 29, 1875 - Bud McDaniel, reputed member of the James Gang, dies in the Douglas County, Kansas, Jail
- On the morning of December 8, 1874, Mary Steel, who lived near the
bridge that spanned the Kansas River at Kansas City, Kansas, saw three
horsemen heading north toward the town of Muncie, Kansas. Muncie was
six miles west of Kansas City, Kansas, and was formerly the old
Delaware Indian town known as both Secondine and Delaware. Though
small, the town was an important point for shipping the area's
agricultural products on the Kansas Pacific Railroad. The three men
that Ms. Steel saw were eventually joined by two others, and the five
arrived at the railroad station in Muncie at around 3:00 pm. They
robbed the stationmaster at gunpoint, and then forced some section
hands to pile rails and ties onto the tracks. They then locked the
hands in a hut and prepared to meet the 4:30, the next train due. As
the train approached, the gunmen forced one of their captives to flag
it down. When the train's engineer saw the flag, he stopped the train.
Two of the gunmen jumped into the cab of the locomotive and captured
the engineer and fireman. Two others took charge of the express manager
and baggage man in the baggage car, and the fifth man went through the
passenger compartments warning those inside not to make any trouble.
The robbers ordered the express manager to unlock the Wells Fargo safe
in the baggage car, which he did. They took the contents of the safe,
later reported to be $5,000 in gold dust and $18,000 in currency, and
rode off, firing several warning shots to keep the passengers on the
train. As they made their escape, they passed two local men who
recognized three of the robbers. They were chased by a posse, but the
pursuers were forced to abandon the chase when the outlaws fled into
Missouri. Several days later, William J. "Bud" McDaniel, also know as
"McDaniels", was arrested in Kansas City for "rowdy behavior and public
drunkenness." He was found to be caring four pistols, a large amount of
money, and items that linked him to the train robbery in Muncie. He was
charged with participating in the crime. McDaniel was the son of a
Kansas City saloonkeeper and his brother Thompson was a known member of
the Jesse James Gang. Bud McDaniel's ties to the James Gang complicated
the duties of the local authorities, because the gang had a significant
amount of influence in Missouri and along the Kansas-Missouri border.
They were concerned that their prisoner would be too much trouble for
them to handle, and the report that prior to his arrest, McDaniel had
been drinking with the Chief of Police of Kansas City did not give
anyone confidence that he would stay in jail there. To assure that he
would remain in custody until his trial, he was moved to Lawrence,
Kansas, and put in the Douglas County Jail. The hope was that the forty
or so miles separating Lawrence from Kansas City would be a safe
distance from the Missouri border and anyone wishing to free him. Why
they would have thought this is not clear, since William Clark
Quantrill and 400 of his armed Confederate guerrillas, including Jesse
James' older brother Frank, came out of Missouri and sacked, burned,
and killed over 150 men and boys in Lawrence on August 21, 1863. The
distance from the Missouri border to Lawrence did not dissuade
Quantrill and his men. At about 6:30 in the evening of June 27, 1875,
just a few days before McDaniel's trial was to begin, J.P. Estes went
to the jail cell where McDaniel and a number of other prisoners were
housed. Estes was the jail guard, and the only officer on duty watching
the prisoners that evening. One of the prisoners had called for water,
and Estes responded. He opened the cell door and was jumped by
McDaniel, William Dunn, Robert Ingals, and Elijah Ledford. The jailer
was hit in the head with an empty bottle and a shovel, and although he
was cut on his head and stunned, he remained conscious. The four
prisoners forced their way into the office, ransacked it, took a number
of firearms and ammunition, and escaped. McDaniel and Dunn rode off on
one horse, and Ingals and Ledford ran. McDaniel and Dunn came across a
wagon being pulled by two horses, stopped it, and forced the driver to
unhitch one of the horses. Dunn mounted it, and he and McDaniel rode
together out of town to the west. The alarm was sounded and after about
twenty minutes, a group of men rode off after the fleeing escapees.
Word was sent out by telegraph to keep a watch for the escaped men. The
posse had no luck, and one by one they returned to town over the
evening hours to wait until the search could resume with the new day.
At around 2:30 the next afternoon, June 28, a man rode into Lawrence
announcing that McDaniel and Dunn had been spotted about five miles up
the Kaw River in the Lakeview area northwest of Lawrence. Men hurried
to the area to aid in the search. Louis Beurman, sometimes referred to
as Bierman or Biermann, a local farmer who was known to be a good shot,
heard of the proximity of the fugitives and joined the search. Beurman
later recounted, "I had been harvesting Monday, and soon after midday I
met Constable Phillips, who told me he had just seen McDaniels and Dunn
seated on a log a short distance off … I ran back to my house,
got out my rifle, an old squirrel rifle, and started in pursuit.
… I ran about a quarter of a mile, when on coming to an open
space I saw the two men. … They saw me at the same time, and
McDaniels slipped from his horse and brought his gun to his shoulder. I
took quick aim and fired. He felt the shot and almost fell forward on
his face, but recovered himself immediately, pulling the trigger at me,
the ball whistling over my head. Then he mounted, and together the two
men dashed into the woods…." The two fugitives rode on for about
a quarter mile before McDaniel became so weak that he nearly fell from
his horse. They dismounted, tied up their horses, and walked on another
quarter of a mile before lying down to hide. McDaniel and Dunn stayed
hidden until dark. Several times during the day, their pursuers came
very close to their hiding place, but did not discover them. McDaniel
later reported that on three separate occasions he drew a bead on
Beurman, intending to kill him, but that Dunn begged him not to, since
that would mean Dunn would then be shot or captured. Shortly after
dark, Dunn announced that he was leaving to try to get across the
river. They shook hands, and then he left, taking all the arms and
leaving McDaniel behind. McDaniel stayed in hiding until around
midnight, when his burning thirst compelled him to crawl to the river
to get a drink. He later reported that he was in agony the rest of the
night, and then at daybreak he decided to give himself up. Shortly
after, he emerged from the brush on the farm of Judge Solon O. Thacher,
where he was met by a farm employee. McDaniel asked for a drink of
water. He was helped to a nearby cabin, given water, and then readied
to be taken into town. Several men put McDaniel into a wagon and
brought him back to town, meeting a group of men, led by the sheriff
and a deputy, who were coming out to recommence the search that day. He
was taken back to the jail where, "Nearly every physician in town
examined the wound, each pronouncing it fatal." McDaniel had been shot
in the abdomen near the naval, the bullet perforating the small
intestine. He was kept as comfortable as possible the rest of the day.
An agent of Wells Fargo arrived and questioned him about the Muncie
robbery, but McDaniel would not reveal anything about it. At about five
in the afternoon, he began to sink rapidly, and died soon after, never
revealing who his accomplices were. The next day, June 30, a coroner's
inquest was held, and the Bud McDaniel case was closed. That same day,
word came that Dunn had been seen in Vinland, Kansas, a town about ten
miles southeast of Lawrence. A posse hurried down and found Dunn hiding
in timber along the west branch of Coal Creek, a little west of
Vinland. The fate of Ingals and Ledford is not known. Thompson
McDaniel, Bud McDaniel's brother, was shot in Kentucky while trying to
escape from a robbery in West Virginia. He died on September 18, 1875,
just three months after his brother. It is uncertain whether Bud
McDaniel was actually a member of the James Gang. It is also uncertain
whether the Muncie train robbery was done by members of the James Gang,
or was carried out by associates of the gang using methods pioneered by
them. In 1958, the old "squirrel gun" that killed Bud McDaniel,
actually a German Schuetzen rifle, was donated to the Kansas Historical
Society by a nephew of Louis Beurman. It is in the collections of the
Kansas Museum of History in Topeka. (From: Muncie, Wyandotte County, Ghost Towns of Kansas: Revisited (2009), DanielcFitzgerald.com website; Description,
Historic Spots or Mile-Stones in the Progress of Wyandotte County,
Kansas, Kansas City Public Library, Missouri Valley Special Collections
website; Republican Daily Journal and Kansas Daily Tribune, v. 7: issue
96 (June 29, 1875), issue 97 (June 30, 1875), and issue 98 (June 1,
1875); Quantrill and the border wars, by William Elsey Connelley, Torch
Press, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1910, p. 317; Cool Things - Rifle from James Gang Shootout, Kansas Historical Society website; The James-Younger Gang Also Rans, The James-Younger Gang website; The James-Younger Gang, Wikipedia website; and, The Jesse James Gang, Kansas Heritage Group website. Published 6/11.) Back to top of page
July 28, 1856 - Charles Robinson, future
Governor of Kansas, writes to John C. Fremont from prison in Camp
Sackett, Douglas County, Kansas Territory -
Doctor Charles Robinson arrived in Kansas Territory in the late summer
of 1854, leading a party sent out by the New England Emigrant Aid
Company. The Company had been formed in Massachusetts to send
Free-State emigrants out to the newly organized territory to work for
it to be admitted to the Union as a state that did not allow slavery.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act, signed into law by President Franklin Pierce
on May 30 of that year, had opened up the possibility that, through a
vote of the residents, the territory could become a slave state. The
signing of this Act had repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which
had set the southern boundary of Missouri to be the northern boundary
of new slave states. The rules had suddenly changed, and because Kansas
should have been a free state under the old rules, eastern
abolitionists were determined not to let it become a slave state.
Immediately upon arriving in Kansas, Robinson and the others in the
party set out helping establish the city of Lawrence, which became know
as the headquarters of the Free-State movement. The first Territorial
election was scheduled on March 30, 1855, with the intent to elect a
territorial legislature. On that day, thousands of men from Missouri
came over the border and took control of the polling places. Even
though they were not residents of the Territory and so should not have
been eligible to vote, they did so anyway. In addition, they kept
Free-State men from voting. The resulting proslavery legislature, know
to the Free-State men in the Territory as the "Bogus Legislature," went
about writing a proslavery constitution, known as the Lecompton
Constitution after the then proslavery capitol of the Territory, and
began setting up a proslavery government. The Free-State men in the
Territory were not willing to let the illegally elected legislature
form a proslavery state government, so they wrote their own Free-State
constitution, known as the Topeka Constitution, and set about
organizing a competing Free-State government. On January 15, 1856,
Robinson was elected Governor of the Territory under the Topeka
Constitution. The Federal Government did not recognize the Topeka
Constitution as legitimate, and President Pierce considered all the
officers elected under it to be committing treason. In March, the
officers elected under the Topeka Constitution were sworn in and the
proslavery sheriff of Douglas County, Sam Jones, recorded their names
for future action. Robinson attempted to avoid conflict with federal
authorities who did not recognize the legitimacy of the Topeka
Constitution, but he incurred their wrath by ignoring laws passed by
the proslavery territorial legislature. After taking office, Robinson
left on a trip back east to promote the Free-State cause. On May 5, a
grand jury of the United States District Court at Lecompton under the
presiding Judge Samuel Lecompte, chief justice of the Kansas
Territorial Supreme Court, issued indictments against the Free-State
officials, indicting Robinson for treason and usurpation of office. On
May 10, Robinson was arrested in Lexington, Missouri. He was brought
back to Kansas and taken to Camp Sackett, a United States military camp
in northwest Douglas County, Kansas Territory. The camp was a tent
city, named for Captain Delos Sackett of the 1st Cavalry at Fort
Leavenworth, that occupied a prairie covered ridge about 3 1/2 miles
southwest of Lecompton. As many as 500 troops were garrisoned there
throughout most of 1856 in an attempt to keep peace between Free-State
and proslavery militias. Eventually, seven Free-State men, including
Robinson, collectively known as the "Treason Prisoners", were
incarcerated at Camp Sackett. On July 28, 1856, Robinson wrote a letter
to John C. Fremont, who was running as the first Republican nominee for
President of the United States using the political slogan, "Free soil,
free labor, free speech, free men, Fremont." In the letter, Robinson
comments on his imprisonment, writing, "Affairs here are as bad as they
can be. Tyranny rules with a rod of iron." He continues with a more
ominous statement, "It is unknown as yet whether Pierce has fully
decided to hang us or not. However, if our hanging can change this
infernal administration they will not make much by the investment." On
the day set for the trials of the imprisoned Free-Staters, neither
judge nor jury, clerk nor marshal appeared, so the proceedings had to
be postponed until their arrival the next day. After their arraignment,
the prisoners' council pressed Judge Lecompte for an immediate trial.
The prosecuting counsel argued for a postponement, basing their
arguments on the grounds that a jury could not be obtained and that
important witnesses were absent, due to the Territory being in
insurrection. Judge Lecompte denied all motions for postponement. The
next day, September 10, Charles Robinson was arraigned for trial,
separately, on a charge of usurpation of office. Reversing his decision
of the previous day, Judge Lecompte decided to continue all the
defendants' cases because "the great excitement prevailing in the
country was such as to prevent a fair trial of the prisoners." Robinson
was granted bail of $500 on the charge of usurpation of office. He and
the other prisoners were then arraigned again for treason, granted bail
of $5,000 each, had their new cases continued, and were released. It
was speculated that the real reason for Judge Lecompte's granting a
continuance was the supposed imminent arrival of the new Kansas
Territorial Governor John Geary, who was known as sympathetic to the
Free-State cause and who might have influenced the trial in the
defendants' favor. The treason charges against all the defendants,
including Robinson, were dropped prior to their coming to trial. In
August 1857, Robinson was brought before Judge Sterling G. Cato,
associated justice of the Kansas Territorial Supreme Court, on the
charge of usurpation of office. Judge Cato, who was well know as a
proslavery activist, did his best to get a conviction, but the jury
acquittal Robinson of the charge on August 20, 1857. His council had
convinced them that, owing to the Topeka Constitutional Convention
being illegitimate, all offices created under it were void, and there
could be no usurpation of an office that did not exist. Kansas was
admitted to the Union as a Free-State on January 29, 1861, and Robinson
became the first Governor of the State of Kansas on February 9, 1861.
During his term of office, he became involved in a dispute with the
state legislature over the sale of some bonds, and they passed an
article of impeachment against him. He was not convicted, and was able
to serve his full term in office, leaving on January 12, 1863. (From: Charles Robinson,
Kansapedia website; A History of Lawrence from the earliest settlement
to the close of the rebellion, by Richard Cordley, E. F. Caldwell,
Lawrence, Kansas, 1895, Chapter 1; Charles Robinson,
Kansas: a cyclopedia of state history, embracing events, institutions,
industries, counties, cities, towns, prominent persons, etc., Standard
Publishing Co, Chicago, 1912, v. 3; The Sack of Lawrence, the Civil War Muse website; William G. Cutler's History of the State of Kansas, Territorial History, Part 41; Camp Sackett, Historic Lecompton website; History of the United States Republican Party, Wikipedia website; List of Governors of Kansas, Wikipedia website; and, Letter, C. Robinson, Camp Sacket, to Hon. J. C. Fremont, July 28, 1856, Territorial Kansas Online website. Published 7/11.) Back to top of page
August 22, 1863 - Thomas Corlew lynched in Lawrence, Kansas
- Lawrence, Kansas, had been the headquarters of the Free-State
movement during the new state's territorial period, and had been sacked
and burned by proslavery supporters on May 21, 1856. At dawn on August
21, 1863, William Clarke Quantrill, perhaps the most notorious
Confederate guerilla commander in the American Civil War, led 400 men
in another, more violent attack on Lawrence. The raiders proceeded to
pillage and burn the town, eventually murdering between 150 and 200
unarmed men and boys. The raid precipitated another event the following
day, when a man was hanged in Lawrence. The true story of that man,
described as being forty-five to fifty years old with thinning hair
turning to grey, is clouded by differing accounts given of him and his
actions. His name was Thomas Corlew, but whether this was the name he
was going by in Lawrence is uncertain. An article in the August 27,
1863, edition of the Leavenworth Daily Conservative refers to
him as John Calloo. This might have been a mistake on the part of the
paper, or it might have been a pseudonym the man was using to conceal
his true identity. An article by John Speer(1) published in the August
27, 1863, edition of the Kansas Weekly Tribune reported that it
was later proven that Corlew had changed his name when coming to
Lawrence, so the possibility of him having gone under the assumed name
of John Calloo is plausible. Corlew and two of his brothers had
supposedly come to Kansas Territory from Missouri in 1854, and were
supporters of the Territory being admitted to the Union as a state that
allowed slavery, as were most of the other emigrants from that slave
state. The Corlews settled along the Wakarusa River near McGee's Ford
in an area where proslavery men lived. According to Speer's Kansas Weekly Tribune
article, Thomas Corlew, "…belonged to a gang on the
Wakarusa…[whose] huts and haunts were so located that a single
yell would be re-echoed for five miles, and the demons would assemble
at a half-hour's notice." Speer's article identified Corlew as a member
of the proslavery group that had killed John Jones in an unprovoked
attack on May 18, 1856, and who also had participated in the burning of
the Free State Hotel in Lawrence three days later. It is unclear
whether Corlew and his brothers were actually active supporters of the
proslavery cause in Kansas, as Speer alleged, or if they had merely
joined in with other more active proslavery men living around them for
their own protection. Because of the violence and bloodshed occurring
during the period known as "Bleeding Kansas", it was difficult to
remain neutral on the slavery issue. A man might be accosted by a group
of unknown men who would ask him if he were "sound on the goose." Being
"sound on the goose" meant that someone supported the proslavery cause,
the "goose" being a euphemism for slavery. If the poor man did not give
the strangers the answer that they wanted, he could wind up with a
knife or bullet in him. Men on both sides of the slavery issue were
known to ask that question, so because of the potential danger, many
men joined one side or the other out of fear and a need for
self-preservation. Regardless of the reasons, Thomas Corlew had gained
the reputation of being a violent proponent of the proslavery cause in
1856, the bloodiest year in "Bleeding Kansas." Considering this, one
can understand why he might have taken an assumed name while living in
Lawrence. In a May 22, 1905, letter to George W. Martin, James C.
Horton(2) wrote about Corlew's time in Lawrence, noting that, "He was a
carpenter by trade, …and so far as I know, working peaceably at
his trade." In an article published in the October 10, 1929, issue of
the Ottawa Herald, W.C Wallace, son of saloonkeeper M.M.
Wallace and a nine-year-old boy at the time of Quantrill's Raid,
recounted the events in his Lawrence home the morning of the raid. He
was reported to have said, "We had no advance information of the coming
of the ‘rebels’ as the raiders were called…. Thomas
Corlew, who was a connection of ours, had been staying for a time at
our house. He was greatly terrified by the massacre, showing it plainly
through extreme nervousness." A quite different account of Thomas
Corlew's actions during the raid was recorded years later by Andrew
Williams, an ex-slave who lived in Lawrence and who survived the raid.
Williams remembered that a woman had seen Corlew going around with the
raiders, showing them where men were hiding so that they could be
killed. After the raid, some of the survivors became suspicious that
Corlew was a spy for Quantrill. The reasons for this suspicion are not
known. Perhaps it was because the Wallace house, where Corlew was
living, was untouched by the violence that had descended on the town
earlier that day. Perhaps the woman mentioned in William's account
spoke up. Speer reports in his newspaper article that Corlew's
son-in-law had "removed his family" out of town the day before the
raid, which could also have caused suspicion. Whatever the reasons, as
reported by Wallace, "It seems that some of the Free State men
suspected him of being a spy, or at least in sympathy with the rebels,
and a mob formed…." They took Corlew into custody, and on the
day following the raid, a trial was held for the accused spy. A jury
was impaneled and three judges were chosen. Corlew was allowed to have
a lawyer to defend himself and the trial proceeded. A number of people
testified. Speer reported that among those who testified were, "colored
men who knew him in Kansas city (sic.)," and by this, "he was proven to
be a rebel, threatening death to the people of Kansas." Speer
continued, "He was proven to have changed his name on coming to
Lawrence, and representing himself as having come from Quincy,
Illinois, when in fact he was from Missouri." Speer concluded, "We
asked him if he was the Corlew who had a cabin near M'Gees Ford, on the
Wakarusa. He admitted he was-- That was enough. He was a murderer, and
deserved death." Following the testimony of the witnesses, the jury
went out to deliberate. One story says that when it came back, the
members desired that the crowd take responsibility. In his 1905 letter,
Horton remembered things a bit differently when he wrote, "…my
recollection also is that the jury did not find any evidence against
him and so reported." According to Horton, Thomas Corlew, "…sat
there during his so-called trial without uttering a word, he was a
pitiful sight." Speer reported, "He exhibited a great deal of
trepidation during the trial, rolling his eyes wildly; but when his
time came, he seemed more composed, merely feeling his throat, but
making no outcry." Whatever the evidence brought against Corlew, and
whatever the actions of the jury, a vote was taken to hang him. Horton
wrote that the hanging occurred, "…in a barn near the City Hotel
at the north end of Massachusetts Street." A rope was thrown over a
joist in the barn and tied around Corlew's neck. Horton reported that,
"I...went to one or two parties whom I thought might stop it, but to no
avail." Corlew was forced to stand on a dry goods box, which was then
pulled out from under him. Williams reported that as he hung there
dying, Corlew was shot half a dozen times by members of the mob. Speer
reported that, "There was no demonstration of delight at his death. The
proceedings were orderly; characterized by a deep determination to rid
the world of a traitor and murderer." The true nature of Corlew's guilt
will probably never be known. There are enough discrepancies in the
various reports of his actions during the raid to have warranted a
deeper examination of the evidence than the lynch court would have
given it. It is likely that Thomas Corlew, through fact or rumor, would
already have been the object of hard feelings from the citizens of
Lawrence, and the absolute devastation and grief caused by Quantrill's
Raid would have pushed those hard feelings into a mindless thirst for
vengeance. Horton keenly observed this when he wrote that, "His hanging
was perhaps a natural outcome of the excited state of public feelings
at the time, …but I think that many people in Lawrence regretted
the occurrence and in ordinary, quiet times no such termination of a
trial, even by a lynch court, would have been permitted." It is likely
that many of Horton's fellow citizens would have agreed with him that
given the circumstances, Corlew's fate might have been unavoidable.
However, Horton went on to write, "I have always felt personally that
this hanging was a disgrace to Lawrence." Many of his fellow citizens
likely agreed with that sentiment as well, since the fate of Thomas
Corlew and what had happened to him in Lawrence on August 22, 1863, has
all but disappeared from communal memory.
(1) It should be noted that John Speer's opinions
and observations might have been colored by the fact that he lost two
sons in Quantrill's Raid, and that the Kansas Weekly Tribune article was published only six days after the event.
(2) James Clark Horton was born in Ballston Spa, New York on May 15,
1837. He came to Kansas and settled in Lawrence in March of 1857. He
served in the Kansas House of Representatives in 1874, and in the
Kansas Senate in 1875 and 1876. In 1878, he moved to Kansas City,
Missouri, where he died on May 14, 1907.
(From: Letter, James C. Horton, Kansas
City, Mo., to Hon. George W. Martin, Topeka, Kans., May 22, 1905,
Kansas State Historical Society Library; Leavenworth Daily
Conservative, v. 7, issue 48 (August 27, 1863), p.2; Kansas Weekly
Tribune, August 27, 1863, p.1; Joseph Savage's recollections of 1854,
Kansas Memory website; Ottawa Herald, v. 33, no. 273 (October 10,
1929), pp. 1-2; Narrative of a Former Slave, by Andrew Williams,
unpublished manuscript, Kansas Collection, Kenneth Spencer Research
Library, University of Kansas; The Devil knows how to ride: the true
story of William Clarke Quantrill and his Confederate raiders, by
Edward E. Leslie, Random House, New York, 1996, p. 236; History of
Lynchings in Kansas, by Genevieve Yost, Kansas Historical Quarterly,
vol. 2, no. 2 (May 1933), pp 182 - 219; and, Kansas Legislators Past
& Present, James Clark Horton, State Library of Kansas website. Published 8/11.) Back to top of page
September 18, 1856 - Mr. Perkins imprisoned in Lecompton, Kansas
- On September 9, 1856, John White Geary, a Pennsylvania native, was
installed as the third governor of the newly organized Territory of
Kansas. Unlike the two men who held the office before him, Geary was an
Independent who had the reputation of being at least neutral on the
issue of whether Kansas should be admitted to the Union as a state that
allowed slavery. Former governors Andrew Horatio Reeder and Wilson
Shannon were both Democrats, and were both sympathetic to, some said
actively in support of, the proslavery faction in the Territory. The
months preceding Geary taking the oath of office had been anything but
calm. With the sacking of Lawrence by proslavery forces on May 21st,
the Pottawatomie Massacre on the night of May 24th-25th, the Battle of
Black Jack on June 2nd, the first Battle of Franklin on June 4th, the
murder of Free-State supporter David Starr Hoyt on August 11th, the
second Battle of Franklin on August 12th, and the Battle of Fort Titus
on August 16th, the deadly violence in "Bleeding Kansas" seemed to be
escalating out of control. Geary wanted to re-establish the rule of law
so that the question over slavery for the territory could be decided by
peaceful means. Complicating this was the fact that the two former
territorial governors were not the only public officials who supported
slavery in Kansas. Samuel Dexter Lecompte was chief justice of the
Kansas Territorial Supreme Court, and a strong supported of slavery in
Kansas. In September of 1856, he issued warrants for the arrest of a
number of Free-State men, and instructed Israel B. Donaldson, United
States Marshal of Kansas Territory, to execute the warrants. Donaldson,
himself a proslavery supporter, was "considerably advanced in years,"
and did not usually go out into the field, instead sending out his
deputies. Many of them were considered rabid supporters of slavery by
the Free-State men in the Territory. Because of the animosity between
Donaldson's deputies and Free-State men, his men were reluctant to
serve warrants without armed escort by United States dragoons(1) that
had been stationed in Kansas to help keep the peace. Donaldson made
numerous requests of Governor Geary for the assistance of the dragoons.
One such request was made by Donaldson to Geary on September 17, 1856,
for "a posse of United States troops [to] be furnished me to assist in
making…arrests, and for the due execution of a number of other
warrants, now in my hands." Colonel Philip St. George Cook, commander
of the United States dragoons stationed near Lecompton, then the
capital of the Territory, supplied 200 mounted men for the task. The
dragoons left Lecompton on the afternoon of the 17th, accompanied by
Donaldson and Governor Geary, and headed for Topeka. Donaldson was
going to Topeka because that is where the men named in the warrants
were reported to be residing. Geary was going to Topeka to begin his
efforts to re-establish order. A bad storm broke out soon after they
set out from Lecompton, forcing them to stop after only about ten miles
and camp for the night at Tecumseh. They broke camp early the next day
and arrived in Topeka about 8:00 am. Word had reached Topeka that Geary
was coming to town to speak, and a crowd met the procession as it
arrived. The dragoons surrounded the crowd, and Donaldson read out the
names of those who were to be arrested. The named men were soon placed
in custody. The remaining citizens organized a town meeting at which
the Governor spoke. His words inspired the crowd, and "resolutions were
passed approving his course, and promising a hearty support to his
administration." The Governor and the Marshall returned to Lecompton
that day, presumably accompanied by the dragoons and the prisoners. One
of those prisoners was a Mr. Perkins. A letter written on October 23,
1856, by Milton Dickey addressed to Thaddeus Hyatt, describes Mr.
Perkins' experiences as a prisoner in Lecompton. The letter reports
that Perkins was "held as prisoner at Lecompton[,] charged with over a
hundred others with the crimes of Murder[,] Treason[,] Arson[,] Manslaughter[,]
and Robery[sic.]." Dickey wrote that Perkins reported the prisoners had
been left for forty hours without anything to eat, and that they had
tried to buy food from their guards, offering as much as twenty-five
cents for one cracker, but were turned down. Sometime later, Perkins
managed to escape from his confinement, crawling four hours on his
belly to get away. He subsequently left Kansas Territory, arriving in
Mount Pleasant, Iowa, on the evening of October 23, 1856. There he
related his experiences to Dickey, which likely prompted Dickey to
write to Hyatt. Just who was this Mr. Perkins, and what was his origin
and subsequent fate, is not known. As to John W. Geary's fate, he was
fired as Governor of Kansas Territory by President James Buchanan on
March 20, 1857, eventually being replaced by Robert J. Walker, a
Democrat. Geary served in the Union Army during the Civil War, being
wounded three times, and rose to the rank of brevetted major general.
After the war, he was elected to two terms as Governor of Pennsylvania,
serving from 1867 to 1873.
(1) Until 1861, the mounted branch of the United
State military was called the dragoons. From 1861 on, it was called the
cavalry.
(From: John W. Geary,
Wikipedia website; Geary and Kansas: Governor Geary's Administration in
Kansas with a complete history of the Territory until July
1857…, by John H. Gihon, Charles C. Rhodes, Philadelphia, 1857, Chapter XXXVII; Letter, M. C. Dickey to Mr. [Thaddeus] Hyatt, October 23, 1856, Territorial Kansas Online website; and, Dragoon, Wikipedia website. Published 9/11.) Back to top of page
October 19, 1856 - William Bowles dies in the "Great Political Prison" in Lecompton, Kansas
- The violence between Free-State and proslavery partisans that had
prompted eastern newspapers to begin referring to Kansas Territory as
"Bleeding Kansas," increased during the late spring and summer of 1856.
The sacking of Lawrence, Kansas Territory, by proslavery forces on May
21st, the Pottawatomie Massacre on the night of May 24th-25th, the
Battle of Black Jack on June 2nd, the first Battle of Franklin on June
4th, the murder of Free-State supporter David Starr Hoyt on August
11th, the second Battle of Franklin on August 12th, the Battle of Fort
Titus on August 16th, and the Battle of Osawatomie on August 30th, had
each added to the escalation of the troubles. On September 8th, an
armed body of proslavery men raided and burned Grasshopper Falls, a
Free-State settlement approximately 15 miles north of Lawrence in
Jefferson County. A day or so later, General James Henry Lane received
word of problems at Ozawkie, another town in Jefferson County some 12
miles northwest of Grasshopper Falls. Lane was a lawyer and politician
who had come to Kansas in 1855, and had eventually allied himself with
the Free-State movement, unusual for a Democrat at the time. He had
been appointed a General in the Free-State Militia and was known to
have a fiery temper, becoming known as "The Grim Chieftain." Lane was
leading a company of Free-State militia toward Holton, which was north
of Topeka, when he received the message from Ozawkie, predominately a
proslavery town. Free-State men who lived there requested that he come
and stop the proslavery men in the town from preying on them. Lane
abandoned his plans to go to Holton, and instead led his men to
Ozawkie. Having restored order in the Ozawkie area, Lane's men were
joined by a number of local Free-State men. Lane then learned that an
armed force of over 100 proslavery men was at Hickory Point, and he
determined that he would march there and capture the men. Hickory Point
was a small settlement in Jefferson County, consisting of a few log
buildings on the Fort Leavenworth-Fort Riley military road about
twenty-eight miles northeast of Topeka. Captain H.A. Lowe was the owner
of Hickory Point, and had recruited around 100 proslavery men, mostly
settlers in the area, to defend his property. They had been joined by a
force of around 40 South Carolinians commanded by a Captain Robertson,
who had been harassing Free-State settlers in the county and were
suspected of have been the men who had burned Grasshopper Falls. Lane
and his men arrived on September 13, and proceeded to attack the
buildings there. The attack was repulsed, and Lane realized that the
buildings were too heavily fortified for him to be able to take without
assistance. He sent messages to Colonel James A. Harvey and Captain
Bickerton in Lawrence. He ordered Harvey to bring up reinforcements,
and for Bickerton to bring "Old Sacramento," a bronze cannon that had
been used by Free-State forces in the Battle of Fort Titus following
its capture from proslavery men in the second Battle of Franklin. Lane
directed them to come to Hickory Point by the long way through Topeka.
Harvey assembled a force of about 125 men and set out that evening for
Hickory Point, accompanied by Bickerton and "Old Sacramento." Instead
of taking the road west to Topeka as Lane had ordered, Harvey marched
his men on the direct route north from town. After having marched all
night the 24 miles from Lawrence, they arrived at Hickory Point at
around 10:30 on the morning of the 14th. Upon their approach, the
proslavery men tried to retreat, but failing that, fell back into the
log buildings. The Free-State men found that Lane and his men were
nowhere to be found. Unbeknownst to them, after Lane had dispatched his
orders to Harvey and Bickerton the previous day, he had received word
that John Geary, the new territorial governor, had issued a
proclamation that all militias disband immediately. Lane abandoned his
plans to attack Hickory Point and led his men towards Topeka. Since he
had ordered Harvey and Bickerton to take the Topeka Road, he expected
to run into them and so be able to stop their advance. As the
reinforcements had taken another route, the two groups did not meet,
and Harvey and Bickerton did not know that the attack had been called
off. After arriving at Hickory Point, Harvey had his men surround the
log buildings. He ordered the cannon be brought up, and readied for
firing. The first shot from "Old Sacramento" passed through the
blacksmith shop, killing one man inside. About 20 more shots were fired
but without effect. A steady rifle fire was kept up by both sides, but
because of the distance between the two, there were few casualties. The
Free-State men attempted to set the blacksmith shop on fire by pushing
a wagon up next to it and setting the hay in it on fire, but were
unsuccessful. Soon after, the proslavery men displayed a white flag,
and both sides ceased firing. Messages went back and forth between the
two sides and at around 5:00 PM, a compromise was reached. It was
agreed that both sides would retire peaceably, give up all plunder that
had been taken, and that all non-residents would leave the county.
Besides the man killed by the cannon ball, four other proslavery men
had been wounded. Three Free-State men had been shot in the legs, one
had a head wound, and another had been shot through the lungs. The
Free-State men left Hickory Point and headed back toward Lawrence,
traveling about five miles before making camp for the night. Several
men continued on with the wounded, trying to get them home that night.
They had only gone about a mile when they met a troop of United States
Dragoons under orders of Governor Geary, who took the men into custody.
The dragoons followed their trail back to the camp and arrested all the
Free-State men they could find. None of the proslavery men who had
participated in the Battle of Hickory Point were arrested. After their
capture, the prisoners had their weapons confiscated before they were
marched to Lecompton, a proslavery town that was the territorial
capital. A number of the Free-State men had managed to avoided capture,
and a few were able to escape during the march to Lecompton, but 101 of
them were still in captivity when they arrived in the capital. For the
first week they were held by the dragoons, but then Colonel Henry T.
Titus took charge of the prisoners, and they all were put into what one
of them called "…an old shell of a house…" The building,
described by a reporter from The Missouri Democrat as "…a frame
house, poorly inclosed, without windows, and surrounded on all sides
with filth and the Titus militia," was only about 20 by 30 feet square,
with no furnishings but a small stove. There were few blankets, and the
101 men were so crowded into that small space that they had to take
turns sleeping on the bare floor. A letter, written on October 19,
1856, and printed in the November 15, 1856, edition of The Herald of Freedom,
was addressed "To the American People" and noted that it was written
from the "Great Political Prison, Lecompton." The letter described the
reasons for their incarceration and the conditions they were being
forced to live in while a grand jury was supposedly determining who
were to be tried and who were to be released. Because only Free-State
men had been arrested for the fight at Hickory Point, the inmates felt
that they were political prisoners. The letter writer likened the
conditions there to the "Black Hole of Calcutta," a notorious dungeon
in India. One of the prisoners was a young man named William R. Bowles.
He was originally from Wisconsin, but had lived for at time in Saint
Charles, Missouri, before coming to Kansas Territory in late July or
early August of 1856. The reporter from The Missouri Democrat
noted that, "He [Bowles] was going to the Territory in company with his
brother, to find a new home. He was a Free-State man, quiet,
gentlemanly and intelligent." On October 17th, Bowles became one of the
many prisoners to fall ill. The reporter wrote that, "The miserable
food and the exposure, and the loathsome nature of the prison, [had]
induced a terrible disease, resembling yellow fever…." The
prisoners who were fortunate enough to have blankets gave them up to
make a bed for Bowles. Some of his fellow prisoners asked their guards
to have Bowles moved to a quieter place, but their request was ignored.
On the morning of the 18th, Governor Geary visited the prison. He was
shown the seriously ill young man, and the prisoners told him they
feared this was the beginning of an epidemic. The Governor said that he
would leave orders that they "should be provided with every comfort
that could be provided." Despite those assurances, when the prisoners
sent word that night to every doctor in Lecompton requesting that they
come and treat Bowles, all refused. One, a Dr. Brooks, was supposedly
sent for five times, but was involved in a poker game, and was quoted
as saying that he, "would not leave the game to save every God damned
Abolitionist in the Territory." At one o'clock the next morning,
October 19, 1856, William Bowles died. In the letter printed in the Herald of Freedom,
it was noted that, "He labored with us nobly in defending our God given
rights, and it was with feelings of unutterable sorrow that we parted
with him." Bowles' body was brought to Lawrence for burial there.
Although many of the other prisoners became seriously ill, his was the
only death recorded from the men confined in Lecompton. After his
death, some of Bowles' fellow prisoners manage to escape from
confinement. Others were charged by the grand jury, tried, and
convicted. The rest were set free. One of the men who survived the
prison in Lecompton was John Kagi, who later became the lieutenant of
John Brown. He went with him back east, and was killed during the Raid
on Harpers Ferry in October of 1859. (From: Hickory Point, Battle of
- Kansas: a cyclopedia of state history, embracing events,
institutions, industries, counties, cities, towns, prominent persons,
etc. ... / with a supplementary volume devoted to selected personal
history and reminiscence. Standard Pub. Co. Chicago : 1912, vol. 1;
William G. Cutler's History of the State of Kansas, Jefferson County,
Part 3, Early Political Troubles; The Battle of Hickory Point,
the Civil War Muse website; Testimonies of Nathaniel Parker, Horace L.
Dunnell, Hinton S. Dunnell, Alexander MacArthur, James Hall, Jerome
Hazen, and Charles Henry Caulkins, pp. 12-13, Territorial Kansas Online website; Herald of Freedom, Vol. 2, Issue 17 (November 15, 1856), p. 3; New York Tribune, November 10, 1856; Records, Abolition Activism in Wisconsin website; The Prison at Lecompton, Kansas, Abolition Activism in Wisconsin website; and, Names of prisoners in custody at Lecompton, Territorial Kansas Online website. Published 10/11.) Back to top of page
November 7, 1856 - Captain John Donaldson frees one of his soldiers from a courtroom in Lecompton, Kansas Territory
- John Donaldson was born in Kentucky in 1830, and came to Kansas
Territory after having been appointed Auditor of Public Accounts for
the Territory by Congress on August 30, 1854. He was proslavery, and
supported Kansas being admitted to the Union as a state that allowed
slavery. When he actually became a resident of the Territory is
unclear, but he is reported to have been living in Jackson County,
Missouri, at the time of the election for the first Territorial
Legislature, held March 30, 1855. Despite not actually being a
resident, Donaldson ran for a seat on the Territorial Council (Senate)
for Riley County. On election day, thousands of proslavery Missouri
residents, possibly including Donaldson, crossed into Kansas, took over
polling stations, voted, in may cases refused to let Free-State men
vote, and then went back home to Missouri. There were three times as
many votes cast that day as there were eligible voters in Kansas. Only
two Free-State candidates won seats. They were Martin F. Conway, who
defeated Donaldson for a seat on the Council, and Samuel D. Houston,
who won a seat in the House. Because of the way the election was
carried out, Free-State men cried foul. Territorial Governor Andrew H.
Reeder called for a new election, but only in those districts where
formal complaints had been filed. Proslavery men boycotted the election
that was held on May 22nd, so as a result, eight additional Free-State
men were elected to the legislature. A legislative committee was
appointed to evaluate the credentials of those elected, and since it
was dominated by proslavery men, it refused to accept any of the
Free-State men elected in May, and instead accepted all the proslavery
men who had won the balloting in the election on March 30th. Martin
Conway resigned from the legislature on July 3rd, in protest of this
blatant violation of a free election, and the next day, July 4th, John
Donaldson was appointed to Conway's seat. Houston resigned from his
seat on July 23rd, leaving the Kansas Territorial Legislature entirely
proslavery. In addition to his seat on the Council, Donaldson was a
captain in the Kansas Militia, which operated as the enforcement arm of
the "Bogus Legislature," so called by Free-State men because of the way
it had been formed. On May 15, 1856, two Free-State men were brought
into Donaldson's camp. One, a Mr. Mitchell, was carrying the mail from
Lawrence, Kansas Territory, the headquarters of the Free-State
movement. Donaldson allowed his men to take the mail from Mitchell. The
two men were treated badly during their captivity, which ended on the
22nd when orders came down from headquarters to release the prisoners.
On November 7, 1856, Donaldson led six armed men under his command into
the courtroom of Justice of the Peace R.R. Nelson in Lecompton, Kansas,
then the capital of the Territory. The Captain was there to rescue one
of his men named Fisher, who was undergoing a hearing in Judge Nelson's
court on the charge of larceny. Donaldson took Fisher away, dismissing
the court, "in a manner that would have done credit to Oliver
Cromwell." An appeal was made to Colonel Philip St. George Cooke,
commander of the United States Dragoons stationed near Lecompton, to
put Donaldson under arrest, which he did. On November 16th, Lieutenant
William Franklin delivered to Donaldson a copy of the charges and
specifications against him. Donaldson called on the Governor, and,
"upon his making the proper explanation and apology, the charge was
dismissed, Captain Donaldson reinstated in his command, and the matter
was left to the action of the civil authorities." The civil authorities
apparently took no action. Instead of serving out his full four-year
term as Auditor of Public Accounts, Donaldson resigned from the office
on February 20, 1857, apparently giving up on Kansas, and left the
Territory. (From: John Donaldson, KansasBogusLegislature.org website; Free State Members,
KansasBogusLegislature.org website; Geary and Kansas: Governor Geary's
Administration in Kansas with a complete history of the Territory until
July 1857…, by John H. Gihon, Charles C. Rhodes, Philadelphia,
1857, Chapter XXXII;
Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society, embracing the
Fifth and Sixth Biennial Reports, 1886-1888, together
with…ending March 10, 1857, Vol. IV, Kansas Publishing House,
Topeka, 1890, p. 638; and, John Donaldson, Kansas Auditors, Kansas State Historical Society website. Published 11/11.) Back to top of page
December 26, 1857 - A "rising voice in deep silence" deals with Christ Kuntz
- Charles (Karl) Kaiser was originally from Bavaria, but lived for many
years in Hungary. He had served in the revolutionary army during the
Hungarian Revolution of 1848, when the Kingdom of Hungary attempted to
gain independence from the Austrian Empire. He had apparently seen much
action in the revolution, as his face was described as being, "marked
with saber cuts and lance thrusts." Kaiser came to the United States,
and arrived in Kansas Territory sometime after it was opened to white
settlement by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. In Kansas, Kaiser was
known as Dutch Charley. At that time, Germans were frequently referred
to as Dutch, the name referring not to the Netherlands but instead
being a corruption of the German word "Deutsch", meaning German. Kaiser
became a supporter of the cause to bring Kansas into the Union as a
state that did not allow slavery, and became an active member of the
Free-State partisans as early as November 1855. On the night of
November 26, 1855, he participated in the rescue of fellow Free-State
supporter Jacob Branson from the proslavery sheriff of Douglas County,
Kansas Territory, and then helped defend the town of Lawrence, Kansas
Territory, from attack in the subsequent Wakarusa War. Kaiser became
acquainted with the abolitionist John Brown, and fought alongside him
in the Battle of Black Jack, June 2, 1856. He was again with Brown's
militia in the Free-State settlement of Osawatomie, Kansas Territory,
when on August 30, 1856, a large force of proslavery men attacked the
town. The proslavery force drove out Brown's Free-State militia, and
sometime during the fight, managed to capture Kaiser. After they
defeated Brown's men, the proslavery men proceeded to sack and burn
everything in town owned by Free-Staters. The proslavery force included
two other ethnic Germans, Christ Kuntz and Henry Sherman, who was known
as Dutch Henry. It was unusual for Germans in the Territory to be
proslavery, as most were like Kaiser and against what John Brown
called, "the sum of all villainies." Charles Leonhardt, anti-slavery
activist and member of the secret Free-State society know as the
Danites, commented on this when he wrote that Kuntz was,
"…another descendent of the otherwise so favorable a race as
friends of liberty, the Teutonic…." Leonhardt also noted that
Kuntz was, "a very hard case" when it came to being proslavery. Dutch
Henry himself was notorious to the Free-State supporters in the
Territory for his proslavery activities, and his brother William had
been one of the five men killed in the Pottawatomie Massacre on the
night of May 24-25, 1856. After leaving Osawatomie in ruins, the men in
the proslavery force held a council to decide what to do with their
prisoner, Dutch Charley Kaiser. During the proceedings, Kuntz
reportedly jumped to his feet shouting, "Let the Dutch kill the Dutch,"
and then commanded Dutch Henry to, "show his grit." In response, Dutch
Henry rose, walked over to Kaiser, and shot him dead through the head.
When news of the murder reached the Free-State camp, "…our
members became silent. None spoke. They looked into each other's eye
[sic]. They all understood the order--to be on a keen lookout for the
murder [sic] and his associates. Both men, Dutch Henry and Koontz(1)
were now by a rising voice in deep silence condemned to die." That
rising voice spoke on the night of December 26, 1857(2). The January 2,
1858, edition of the Kansas Tribune newspaper carried an
article that read, "A German by the name of Kuntz was found dead near
his residence several miles south of Lecompton[, Douglas County, Kansas
Territory,] a few [days] ago. He took a prominent part in the
pro-slavery ranks during the troubles of 1856, and as the recollection
of several dark deeds are associated with his name, it is not
improbable that justice has been meted out to him by some of his old
antagonists in rather a summary and unceremonious manner." As to the
identity of these old antagonists, the newspaper was silent, but
Charles Leonhardt wrote that, "John E. Stewart(3) and Willitz Dorn [or
Horn]…rid the world of Christ Koontz." Assuming that Leonhardt's
account is accurate, Stewart and Dorn were the embodiment of that
"rising voice in deep silence," when they killed Kuntz. Although the
killers of Kuntz were obviously known in some circles, the authorities
never were told, and no one was every brought to trial for the killing
of Christ Kuntz. Dutch Henry Sherman, the man Kuntz had goaded into
murdering Kaiser, had himself been killed nine months before Kuntz, in
March 1857, supposedly, "… by a party of men, simply for his
money, of which he had collected a considerable amount." Whether this
is correct, or whether Dutch Henry's demise was another expression of
that "rising voice," is unknown.
(1) Several different spellings of the name exist in written accounts, including Kuntz, Kontz, and Koontz.
(2) In a letter to the editor printed in the March 9, 1900, issue of the Baldwin Ledger,
an anonymous writer tells of some of the experiences he and a man he
calls his brother had had during the turbulent times in the 1850s in
Douglas County. From the tone of the letter, it is possible that he
meant that the man was his brother-in-arms, and not actually a member
of his family. It is also possible that the author of the letter, in
describing the activities of his "brother," was using a fictitious
person to mask an account of his own activities. Whatever the true
identity of the writer, he mentions that a proslavery man named Koons,
"who had killed his third free state man...," had "bit the dust upon
the night of December 26, 1857, ...". The timing of when the writer
indicated the man he called Koons "bit the dust" (i.e.: when he died),
combined with the timing of when Kuntz's body had been discovered near
Lecompton, and adding in the similarity of the two names, leaves little
doubt that the letter writer was referring to Christ Kuntz. Assuming
the writer was correct about the date, Christ Kuntz was killed on the
night of December 26, 1857.
(3) John E. Stewart, also know by the alias Levi W. Plumb, was a
Methodist minister who earned the nickname "the fighting preacher" for
his militant support of the Free-State cause in Kansas. Stewart had
also participated in the rescue of Jacob Branson in November 1856, so
would undoubtedly have known Charlie Kaiser, and likely would have
served with him in other Free-State activities. Considering his
attitude and his militancy, Stewart would have been a good candidate to
have helped, "…rid the world of Christ Koontz."
(From: The Secret Danites, Kansas' First
Jayhawkers, by Todd Mildfelt, Todd Mildfelt Publishing, Richmond, KS,
2003, pp. 42-43; Kansas Tribune, v. 2, no. 49, (January 2, 1858), p. 2;
German Republicans and Radicals in the Struggle for a Slave-Free
Kansas: Charles F. Kob and August Bondi, by Frank Baron, Yearbook for
German-American Studies, No. 40 (2005), pp. 3-26; Hungarian Revolution of 1848, Wikipedia website; The Kansas Conflict, by Charles Robinson, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1892, p. 186; Thaddeus Hyatt Papers 1843-1898,
Kansas Historical Society website; Geary and Kansas: Governor Geary's
Administration in Kansas with a complete history of the Territory until
July 1857…, by John H. Gihon, Charles C. Rhodes, Philadelphia,
1857, Chapter XXXI; William G. Cutler's History of the State of Kansas, Border Troubles - Part 2, Bourbon County, Part 3; John Stewart and Others of the Wakarusa/Kennedy Valley, Wakarusa River Valley Heritage Museum website; and, The Baldwin Ledger, v. 17, no. 21, (March 9, 1900), p.2. Published 12/11.) Back to top of page
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